Nope, not a misspelling, according to this story, coming from Switzerland via rue89 and translated by truthout:

Bush would have declared to Chirac that Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and that the Biblical prophecies were in the process of being fulfilled. That was several weeks before the intervention in Iraq. The French president, to whom the names of Gog and Magog meant nothing, was stupefied.

In Allez savoir, Thomas Römer details: Gog and Magog are two creatures who appear in Genesis, and especially in the most arcane chapters of the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel. An apocalyptic prophecy of a global army giving final battle in Israel.

For Jocelyn Rochat, this little international policy professional secret raises a vast question: our lack of religious education, our ignorance of Scriptures at a time when religious foundations are far more crucial than we'd like to believe in political and military decisions. Religion is not confined to the private sphere, Jocelyn Rochat concludes. A parameter to take into account "at the risk of no longer understanding the way the world works today."

Religion is important because it affects the real world through the superstitions of its adherents.

as someone that is/was aware of Gog and Magog I have to say, it is NOT important to know about it - only in a general cultural knowledge kind of way - as a detector as how far off the reality scale the person using that metaphor is.

Having said that: The importance of the story for me is the underlying, but often forgotten realisation by people discussing with "crazed" religious folk: They are here to stay, and no level of atheistic thinking, or arguing is going to change that.

I'd agree with the level of detail - though isn't that one of the more entertaining stories? - but the general principle is important: Jérôme can be a touch dismissive of the importance of knowing the context of these things.

Using it as a metaphor isn't necessarily an indication of removal from reality, just a different language. Any literal belief in it as a prediction is another matter.

Well, these crazy bastards really believe this shit. It took me and many like me years to come to this stupefying understanding. Yopu have no idea what it is like to drive through the American south and see the level of fundamentalism that is nakedly on display. It exists elsewhere too, but the south...

Considering he was speaking to President Chirac, and not to an American Bible-belt audience, make the hope unlikely.

More likely this is a sample of his actual thinking.

Non-American readers need to be aware--not merely that this is a religious delusion--but what the delusion is: That at the End of Time the world will be consumed by a great war between Good and Evil, and essentially destroyed. The few survivors (obviously all Christians--in fact Baptists) who have not been already raptured up (that's a sub-delusion not relevant here) will live for a thousand years in the kingdom of Jesus, and then all those Christians who have died but are saved will be resurrected to live forever.

The key point you should be aware of is that the believers in this delusion believe that God needs (their) help in bringing this World-destroying war about.

Next thing we know it will be Golem and the Evil Wall which crept up and slipped away with all those WMDs.

Note to fellow Americans on this board - keep those eyes opened wide. Roughly one in five Americans believe in this hocum. And they vote. Dubya didn't happen in a vacuum. Onward Christian soldiers.

And to my fellow Europeans on the board, you really have to see it to believe it. It suffices to spend a day in your car driving through, say, Texas or Oklahoma or Kansas listening to your car radio and flipping the dial every so often. Truly, wonders never cease the creativity of the ignorant human mind.

Though in fairness, I noted the same creativity while a student back in the late 1980's in Peshawar, Pakistan. And, as in certain parts of the US, one keeps one's incredulity to one's self in public.

It's good that this comes out now, as it should serve, by dribs and drabs, to undermine Sarko and his rapprochement with the Americans. I confess to taking a perverse glee in this in much the same way I am enjoying Villepin's very public defence of himself.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet.
Winston Churchill

And to my fellow Europeans on the board, you really have to see it to believe it.

I've seen: I was driving from Boston to Nevada, when somewhere in rural Illinois or Wisconsin we stopped for gas and some snacks. I got some crackers, a bottle of water, etc. At the cashier it rang up to $6.66. The woman behind the counter gets really pale, looks at me, then at the display again, and whispers quietly: "I'm not gonna say it". I payed and got out rather quickly. Fun times with fundies!

How would you like to have been issued a license plate with those diabolical numbers on it. The one I've had for the past 12 years at least is CIX 66. A diabolical acquaintance also used the numbers in his e-mail address.

Religion is one thing, superstition another. I am Southern US born and raised, and a practicing Christian, but modern day prophets are either crazier then loons or there is a profit motive (pun intended) and that goes double for anyone that uses Biblical prophecy as an excuse for war. As I often say, God doesn't need me or anyone else to defend his existence or fight his battles.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

We were driving from Boston to Idaho and Utah. Thank the Lord (yes - a pun, sue me) that we brought CDs. I think the good radio stations petered out somewhere in Ohio, picked up again around Chicago and then further westwards went over a cliff to die miserably. The remaining three choices were:
1.) Country music 24/7
2.) Mad Raving Sermons
3.) Talk radio with callers about the benefits of home schooling and the evilness that is Harry Potter

Around the time we hit Wyoming we found NPR which was somewhat of a relief. The urge of "We've gone through a time-warp" was really getting to me.

I'm reading your diary "Don't cry for me Argentina" which has been on my hot list for a while, obviously. (I'm slow- so sue me.) I think it's time for you to do "Argentina revisited." I promise I'll read it more promptly.

I honestly don't know if he really believes this stuff, is just pandering to the "Left Behind "crowd, or if we're projecting our fears onto him - giving him more credit that is due. But nothing he says or believes should shock us at this point. He is a madman.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

The first occurrence of "Magog" in the Hebrew Bible is in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, where Magog is the eponymous ancestor of a people or nation (without any accompanying apocalyptic symbolism, or mention of Gog, although "Magog" may mean "the land of Gog"):

Gog and Magog are mentioned in the New Testament Book of Revelation, which draws on the depiction of them in the older prophetic works. They appear in verses 20:7-8:

7. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
8. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. (KJV)

Here, Gog and Magog are identified as the nations in the four corners of the earth, and their attack is represented as an eschatological crisis after the Millennium, to be vanquished by divine intervention. The language of Gog and Magog's destruction is very similar to that of their mention in Ezekiel.

Bush is probably referring to the first Gog, who might well be him (or Cheney). Back to the Hebrew Bible:

10. Thus says the Lord "On that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind and you will make an evil plan:"[6]
11. You will say, "I will go against a land of unwalled villages...(FRZ)(FRZ: mostly refers to Iraq as Frz (Unwalled Villages) in the Book of Esther)[7]
12. To take plunder and booty..."[8]
13. Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, will say to you, "have you come to take a spoil?"[9]
[...]
They will be joined by Persians from the East, Phut from the West, Kushites from the South, and others. We are told that Gog dwelt north of Israel, but there is little else to identify Gog in the passage. Gog and his allies are to attack "a land of unwalled villages" to collect booty, but before attacking Israel itself will be reduced to a "sixth" of their size (Ezekiel 39:2). Their reduced army will be destroyed in Israel, their dead buried in the Valley of Hamon-Gog for all to see and comment on (39:15-17).

Bush arguably comes from the north of Israel, at least in terms of latitude, and has come to take spoils from Iraq.

The U.S. army arguably hasn't yet been reduced to 1/6th of its size, been joined by the Iranians, Libyans and Northern Sudanese, or made moves against Israel. But who knows what might yet happen!

We had this theory that Bush was indeed the antichrist, that the 7-year tribulation coincides with the 7 years between 9-11 and the 2008 Presidential election, and that the Rapture was a metaphor for the abduction of several thousand American Muslims in late 2001 by the Bush Administration, or the global Bush gulag (remember, Islam is an Abrahamic religion which did not exist when the Apocalypse was revealed, so muslims are believers in the same God of the Book of Revelations).

Probably what depresses more than anything about where we are today is that it's 2007 and biblical narratives are still hanging around like a bad smell.

I doubt Bush is the antichrist any more than he's the christ.

I think it's more likely he's someone with serious psychological and emotional problems - which unfortunately are shared by a substantial segment of the US population.

Wilhelm Reich was a bit of a crazy too in some ways, but he tried to popularise the idea of Emotional Plague. And that's exactly where we are today, I think - a population with substantial cognitive and emotional difficulties, and no clear solutions.

It's the psychological equivalent of living in the Middle Ages, before basic sanitation was invented, and people died a lot for stupid reasons, pointlessly, and blamed it all on god.

Science-y types often say "we evolved for life on the Savanna" (and as such we weren't meant to stare at computer screens all day, for example). On the cultural plane, religion also evolved and made sense for a different time and place. It's utterly outmoded today, but replacing that mental space with myths (or fewer myths, for those that can handle it) that work for us in the modern world is an exercise that will take many, many generations to complete as the inertia is so strong.

I happen to know about Gog and Magog, but I agree a detailed knowledge is of little interest to understand the current political situation. However, knowing George Bush believe in such lunacies is important (and scary!). ...

Interestingly, Gog and Magog exist also for Muslims under the name Jouj and Majouj. They are kept prisoners in the mountains by a wall which they try to demolish and which is rebuilt every day by Allah. They are supposed to escape at the end of times and rampage all over the world...

I had Gog and Magog with my corn flakes when I was a kid, along with the Horns of the Beast. It's an established part of fundie eschatology (not the corn flakes).

The main bit is quoted above by nanne, from Revelation: Satan is freed and unleashed to deceive the nations, (alluded to as Gog and Magog by back-reference to Old Testament prophecy). It all ends up in a whopping battle around what other than the Holy Land and Jerusalem. All the baddies get tasered if not nuked, and in the end the born-again Christians and all the converted Jews survive and Jerusalem can be the Bride of Christ. The End.

How much do we need to know about all this? I mean, how much do we want to know? :-(

But if it is true that Bush really spoke this way to Chirac, that is really unsettling. What could it mean? That Bush thought it would help persuade Chirac? That he thought Chirac would understand and get hip to the End Times narrative? The mind boggles. That, even though he didn't expect Chirac to be swayed, Bush thought he was duty-bound to bear witness to the truth?

So now we know. After all the mountains of commentary and speculation, all the earnest debates over motives and goals, all the detailed analyses of global strategy and political ideology, it all comes to down to this: George W. Bush waged war on Iraq because, in his own words, God "instructed me to strike at Saddam."

This gospel was revealed, appropriately enough, in the Holy Land last week, through an unusual partnership between the fractious children of Abraham. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz was given transcripts of a negotiating session between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and faction leaders from Hamas and other militant groups. Abbas, who was trying to persuade the groups to call a ceasefire in their uprising against Israeli forces, described for them his recent summit with Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush.

During the tense talks at the summit, Bush sought to underscore the kind of authority he could bring to efforts at achieving peace in the Middle East. While thundering that there could be "no deals with terror groups," Bush sought to assure the rattled Palestinians that he also had the ability to wring concessions from Sharon. And what was the source of this wonder-working power? It was not, as you might think, the ungodly size of the U.S. military or the gargantuan amount of money and arms America pours into Israel year after year.

When the nomadic Magyar (Hungarian) tribes descended upon Western Europe 1100 years ago, Westerners alternatively identified them as the returning Huns (hence "Hungarian") or the wild hordes of Gog and Magog (Magog-Magyar). In later Chrstian times, the feudal/clerical upper class of the Hungarian Kingdom internalised both concepts into their mythologic history(-re-writing).

A strange result was that with the ascent of nationalism, Attila and Gog/Magog fully completed the inversion from evil forces to noble Barbarian ancestors that, say, only wanted to create a peaceful unified Europe.

I tend to regard most news of W's religious motivations with much suspicion. In fact, I think that these kinds of pronouncement are more representative of who talked to W within the previous 24 hours (and the skill of his speech writers) than anything else.

IMO there are good reasons to think that W isn't strongly religious except that he needs the image to pander to the fundies who were critical to his success and remain his only support left. For example, although the media certainly refuses to talk about it, W doesn't really attend church, which even if not entirely diagnostic is certainly worth pondering. Also, his "brain", Rove the man who made W the politician, is an atheist, which seems to demand an "openness to the devil" not entirely consistent with citing Gog to justify the occupation of Iraq.

You are on the right track. W's biggest achievement has been to trick people into believing he lacks intelligence or knowledge. His administration has been about plundering the treasury from the beginning and as per Occam's Razor everything else seems to serve that obvious and basic purpose. The rest is obfuscation.

Reagan, to whom Bush is a disciple, preferred his adversaries to doubt his sanity and rationality. Keeps your opponent off guard and always wondering what you are capable of. It is an entirely effective technique and the Bush people are not running amateur hour here.

It is my feeling that they are pure globalists who believe that the nation state is outdated and they serve a new world that most people haven't noticed exists yet. The constituency of the current US Administration is the wealthy class and Bush has made as much clear when speaking to this audience.

Watch what they do, rather than what they say and it's all very simple.

I couldn't agree more with your comments. Progressives are paying way too much attention to the sand thrown in our eyes. We also have to be consistant: do we really believe they'd have the skill to make a complete sham of the democratic process and manufacture consent to further the global aims of corporations, yet they'd leave decison making to a bumbling zealot fool? Not very likely.

In the same line of thinking, the french should certainly not underestimate Sarkozy by attributing his actions to a little man complex.